Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Another Invasive Ultrasound Bill? Yep

Man, you’d think the Republican party would have learned a thing or two from last year, when they got blasted for a whole range of authoritarian policies that harm women and lost the female vote by a sizable margin. Not in Arkansas, where they want to require invasive vaginal probes before a woman can get an abortion:

The new Rapert bill would prohibit an abortion if a heartbeat is detected, a limitation that moves the potential prohibition in Arkansas law to the 5th week of pregnancy, far beyond the pre-viability protection period that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld. Viability has generally been considered at the 23rd to 24th week, though anti-abortion legislatures have tried to move that to 20 weeks, a move that is under challenge in court. Such legislation is being offered again in Arkansas and could be considered in committee this week. It’s even meaner in some ways than Rapert’s bill — no exception for rape and incest or mental health of mother.

The new Rapert bill would require a check for heartbeat by “standard medical practice, including the use of medical devices as determined by standard medical practice.” The bill doesn’t spell it out, but at the earliest stage of a pregnancy, this requirement would mean a transvaginal probe. To get an abortion under the Rapert legislation, a woman in the earliest stage of pregnancy (when most abortions are sought and performed) would be forced to submit to a vaginal probe rather than a standard ultrasound passed over the abdomen. And, if five weeks pregnant and a heartbeat was detected, a woman would be told an abortion was illegal.

Sounds like this legislator has an extra ‘t’ in his name. Because this is rape — legally-sanctioned rape.

A fine illustration on what happens when the cynics (social dominators) are supplanted by the true believers (authoritarians or worse yet, double highs – social dominators who are also authoritarians).

I’m not sure why they don’t just pass a law requiring all post pubescent females to submit to a pregnancy test once a month and lock up those who are pregnant. They could put them in cells, allowing, of course, conjugal visits for the married ones. The others, they could parade on a platform in the center of town with a sign saying “SLUT” above it.

These extremely poor excuses of vapid carbuncles on the ass of humanity are all seemingly enthused with a gut-wrenching paranoid fear that the wimmins’ are not subject to their maleness any more…the poor bunnies are feeling all concubineless….and them wimmins’ ain’t listening to their superiority attitude not no more and they is losing control of the baby makin’ machines / slave….diddums !

Last week, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women released a report whose title is as frightening as its contents: “Arrests of and forced interventions on pregnant women in the United States 1973-2005” published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law. The report documents more than 400 cases where women have been locked up in jail or psych wards or forced to undergo medical intervention while carrying wanted pregnancies (and they’ve unearthed 250 more in the last 7 years, which did not make it into the report).

Some highlights: A woman gets pregnant while on Depo Provera, miscarries, and is imprisoned for a year on murder charges; a woman is involuntarily committed because she failed to get a recommended follow-up test for gestational diabetes; a woman planning a home birth is court-ordered to undergo a cesarean and taken against her will to the hospital for forced surgery.

These cases are largely based on legal theory that gives a woman’s pregnancy more constitutional rights than herself, theory which has given rise to “fetal personhood” campaigns and “unborn victims of violence” acts.

It costs the state nothing to beat up and discriminate against their usual hate targets, women, gays, scientists, and reality.

Solving real world problems is hard and can cost a lot. So they don’t bother.

There is a movement in the GOP to stop being the haters and idiots party. I don’t see that it will get anywhere.

They need to lose a few more electoral cycles and their base of old white christofascists needs to take the inevitable next step. To being old white dead christofascists. Demographic shifts happen but they are slow.

raven“Solving real world problems is hard and can cost a lot. So they don’t bother.”
Pah! Everybody knows that all the other problems come from moral decline. And you do know where moral decline comes, right? Correct: ladyparts.

I wonder what the statistics are on how many miscarriages would be caused by using a vaginal probe in the first few weeks of pregancy? If the doctor accidentally went too far, would it be considered an abortion? Has this legislator ever researched that? Of course not. Seems that folks with worms in their brains like to open cans of worms for other people. It may be cold, snowy and icy up here, but at least our brains aren’t frozen.

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[…] at Dispatches from the Culture War Ed Brayton is reporting that yet another bill mandating a transvaginal ultrasound (otherwise known as the Religious Rape Rod) for women seeking an abortion. This time, it’s in […]